Irish Fiction Quotes & Sayings

It was a sacrifice worthy of her and dreams are made to be killed. — David Louden

Convention serves a purpose: It gives life meaning, and without it, one is in a constant existential crisis. If you don't have the imposition of family to remind you of what is at stake, something else will. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

For the Irish, life is a matter of perpetual grievance. We remember the Famine, but forget the Draft Riots. We seal off our neighborhoods to strangers, but allow our own priests to victimize our own children. We worship violence and we enslave ourselves to alcohol, we lie and steal and kill without conscience for generations at a time. But it's all right in the end, and do you know why? Because we don't tolerate lust. — Mary Gordon

Darling, I'm the least perfect person in the world."
"Oh, we know you've make mistakes," Cassandra said cheerfully. "What Pandora meant was that you always appear to be perfect, which is all that really matters."
"Actually," Kathleen said, "that's not what really matters."
"But there's no difference between being perfect and seeming perfect as long as no one can tell," Cassandra said. "The result is the same, isn't it?"
Looking perturbed, Kathleen rubbed her forehead. "I know there's a good answer for that. But I can't think of what it is right now — Lisa Kleypas

She let her mind drift, thinking about new lingerie designs, wishing she'd brought along her sketchpad. Inspiration could strike at the most inconvenient times--in the shower, in the car, on this road--but she was grateful it was with her again, an old companion with whom she was getting reacquainted, pleased to find they could take up where they'd left off, as if there'd been no estrangement at all. — Heather Barbieri

Wealth unused might as well not exist. — Aesop

Atty's eyes rested on Darby with all the subtlety of a dog watching his food bowl being filled! — Tricia Murphy

Ipsum Nomen Res Ipsa: The Name Itself is the Thing Itself. I.N.R.I.: Isis, Apophis, Osiris: IAO. — Robert Anton Wilson

I'faith, 'tis an Occasion of no small Satisfaction to commence this Enquiry into the Romances & Fiction of the English--& their antick Neighbors, the Irish & the Scotch--free at last from the Tyranny of scurvy Translators--& to reacquaint myself with the earliest Works that engender'd my Love for the Novel. O Swift, O Fielding, O Sterne, I hail thee after too long an Absence, keen to revel once more in your rare Inventions and pricking Raillery, along with those of your less-fam'd Countrymen. Prithee look kindly on these Efforts of yr humble Servant to blazon your Glories to the gaping Pucklick. — Steven Moore

Asking questions is an art. — Nina George

Perhaps he found it strange being accompanied by a Chinese-Nigerian arms trafficking pirate, but the Irish priest had just followed me silently on board the covert government transport. — Dayo Ntwari

We can't just rail against crime. We must speak of the root problems - devastating family breakup, an insidious culture of violence that cheapens human life, skyrocketing prisoner recidivism rates that rob our communities of husbands and fathers - and recognize that there is a societal role in rehabilitation and restoration. — Frank Wolf

Dark, was banned by the Irish state censor for obscenity. The story was set, as so much of McGahern's later fiction would be, in isolated rural Ireland and dealt with the bleak consequences of parental and clerical child abuse. On the instructions of the Archbishop of Dublin, McGahern was sacked from his job as a primary school teacher. He later left the country. Despite these apparent setbacks, McGahern's literary friends reassured him that all this was a wonderful opportunity in terms of publicity and sales. Remember Joyce and Beckett being forced overseas? This was Irish literary history repeating itself, and preparations were soon being made to mount a campaign against the anachronistic and widely derided censorship laws with McGahern as the figurehead.
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McGahern agreed that the situation was indeed absurd, and says that even as an adolescent reader he had nothing but contempt for the censorship board. — John McGahern

What I was caught up in, I dimly understood, was the embodiment of history — Peter Cunningham

A man [Joyce] whose earliest stories appeared next to the manure prices in the Irish Homestead knew that columns of prose, like columns of shit, could both recultivate the earth. — Declan Kiberd

He looked along the line of children, exhibits A to C of his existence and heirs to the twisted throne of his corrupt genetics. — David Louden

First a piece of Irish wisdom: you should always listen to a bookie. For they have a saying, 'Money tells a good story,' and somewhere in their odds is a kind of science-fiction existentialism that decrees that we, the people, know everything. In other words, betting patterns often make for good, unconscious soothsaying. — Frank Delaney

Irish fiction is full of secrets, guilty pasts, divided identities. It is no wonder that there is such a rich tradition of Gothic writing in a nation so haunted by history. — Terry Eagleton

Anakana Schofield is part of a new wave of wonderful Irish fiction-international in scope and electrically alive. — Colum McCann

The more opportunities people have to experience television on different platforms, the more television they consume overall. So there actually has been a benefit, but the ratings have gone down. But we've seen kind of the horizontal benefit of this. And it remains a great, great promotion engine. — Anne Sweeney

He was a shadow of the man that once intimidated us out of our home, a shell of a human being, a fragment of a father. — David Louden

The horse-laugh indicates brutality of character. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

All good things originate with the Creator God, he'd been taught, and the Song of Life was no exception. — Sandi Layne

If I might offer any apology for so exaggerated a fiction as the Barnacles and the Circumlocution Office, I would seek it in the common experience of an Englishman, without presuming to mention the unimportant fact of my having done that violence to good manners, in the days of a Russian war, and of a Court of Inquiry at Chelsea. If I might make so bold as to defend that extravagant conception, Mr Merdle, I would hint that it originated after the Railroad-share epoch, in the times of a certain Irish bank, and of one or two other equally laudable enterprises. If I were to plead anything in mitigation of the preposterous fancy that a bad design will sometimes claim to be a good and an expressly religious design, it would be the curious coincidence that it has been brought to its climax in these pages, in the days of the public examination of late Directors of a Royal British Bank. — Charles Dickens

Up and up they went, still a cable's length apart; but slowly, for the ape was footsore and despondent. As for Stephen, by the sixth-hundred step his calves and thighs were ready to burst, and at each rise now they forced themselves upon his attention. Up and up, up and up until the ridge was no great way off at last. But before they reached it, the path took another turn; and when he too came round the corner he was on top of the ape. She was sitting on a stone, resting her feet. He scarcely knew what to do; it seemed an intrusion. 'God be with you, ape.' he said in Irish, which in his confusion seemed more appropriate. — Patrick O'Brian

Of this fickle temper he gave a memorable example in Ireland, when sent thither by his father, Henry the Second, with the purpose of buying golden opinions of the inhabitants of that new and important acquisition to the English crown. Upon this occasion the Irish chieftains contended which should first offer to the young Prince their loyal homage and the kiss of peace. But, instead of receiving their salutations with courtesy, John and his petulant attendants could not resist the temptation of pulling the long beards of the Irish chieftains; a conduct which, as might have been expected, was highly resented by these insulted dignitaries, and produced fatal consequences to the English domination in Ireland. It is necessary to keep these inconsistencies of John's character in view, that the reader may understand his conduct during the present evening. — Walter Scott

Prayer is the means that God has ordained for the supply of grace that is necessary to be joyful in hope. — Alistair Begg

At feasts, remember that you are entertaining two guests, body and soul. What you give to the body, you presently lose; what you give to the soul, you keep for ever. — Epictetus

Margaret looked at the ring on her finger. "Gran gave me this before we boarded the ship. It's the most special thing in the world to me. I'll never take it off, Hanna. No matter how hungry I am. — Meredith Jaeger

Kiana loved birds," Breena told him late one dusky evening. "When she was just a few summers old, she would run beneath them as they flew, her chubby arms stretched out as if tmo take flight alongside them." She sniffed and wrapped her arms around her stomach. "A few weeks before the attack, she told me that she was still going to fly one day. 'I look at the birds, and I see freedom,' she said. 'To soar above the hurt of the world, to be too high for the wars of men to touch you: that is what it means to fly. — Elizabeth Wilson

What kind of vision are you casting for the people around you? Dad, what kind of vision are you casting for your children? Mom, what kind of vision are you casting for your husband? Grandparent, what about those grandkids? Leader, what kind of personal visions are you casting for the people who have invested their time and talents in your vision? — Andy Stanley

Life is like a cocktail, made up for the most part of sweet things, and tinged with a dash of bitters. We must drain it to the dregs to get at the cherry, just as we must live a full and rounded life to know all its pleasures. — Edgar Guest

Some children are spoiled and it is not their fault, it is their parents. — Roald Dahl

So you're the little smart ass from Poleglass.
I wanted to point out he sounded like Dr. Seuss but bit my lip and remembered the warning the old lady gave me. — David Louden

Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there. — Bernie Mcgill